1. Technical Field
Exemplary aspects of the present invention relate to a fixing device, a belt device, and an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to a fixing device for fixing an image on a recording medium, a belt device incorporated in the fixing device, and an image forming apparatus incorporating the fixing device.
2. Description of the Background
Related-art image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, facsimile machines, printers, or multifunction printers having two or more of copying, printing, scanning, facsimile, plotter, and other functions, typically form an image on a recording medium according to image data. Thus, for example, a charger uniformly charges a surface of a photoconductor; an optical writer emits a light beam onto the charged surface of the photoconductor to form an electrostatic latent image on the photoconductor according to the image data; a development device supplies toner to the electrostatic latent image formed on the photoconductor to render the electrostatic latent image visible as a toner image; the toner image is directly transferred from the photoconductor onto a recording medium or is indirectly transferred from the photoconductor onto a recording medium via an intermediate transfer belt; finally, a fixing device applies heat and pressure to the recording medium bearing the toner image to fix the toner image on the recording medium, thus forming the image on the recording medium.
Such fixing device may include a fixing rotator, such as a fixing sleeve, a fixing belt, and a fixing film, heated by a heater and a pressure rotator, such as a pressure roller and a pressure belt, pressed against the fixing rotator to form a fixing nip therebetween. As a recording medium bearing a toner image is conveyed through the fixing nip, the fixing rotator and the pressure rotator apply heat and pressure to the recording medium, melting and fixing the toner image on the recording medium.